Mahindra BE 6 special feature: Setting India’s longest drift on ice

Drass in Ladakh wakes up quietly. But it never really feels at rest. The cold sits in the air like it owns the place, biting through layers, slowing everything down – except the wind, which cuts across the valley without warning. This is the second coldest inhabited town on Earth, a place that has seen temperatures drop to -60 degrees Celsius, and one that still carries the weight of the Kargil War in the mountains that surround it. It’s hard to stand here and not think about what this land has seen, or how close it came to being lost. And yet, on a frozen patch of ground in the middle of it all, we found ourselves lining up a Mahindra BE 6 electric SUV – not for a sprint or mere photographs, but to deliberately break traction and hold it there, balancing on the edge of control for as long as possible.

The machine we had brought with us wasn’t typically built for this kind of place, or this kind of task. But that’s precisely why the Mahindra BE 6 was here; because it has the right fundamentals – 282bhp, 380Nm and RWD. All we had to do was push the car’s boundaries and that’s something evo India has been doing for over a decade. Drass isn’t the kind of place you choose unless you have a very specific reason to be here. Nothing about it is convenient. The altitude gets to you before you realise it, the cold seeps in no matter what you’re wearing and wildlife moves around undisturbed. But that’s also what makes it perfect.

Meet ice driving

The plan was clear from the start: attempt the longest drift on ice ever recorded in India and do it in conditions that wouldn’t give us anything for free. The 418 metres comes later. What mattered first was understanding what we were up against. It starts with the surface – but also with what we don’t have. Because anywhere else in the world, this would have looked very different. Ice driving, as a discipline, doesn’t belong here. It lives in places we’ve only seen on YouTube – frozen lakes in Finland, Norway, and Sweden, tracks that are mapped out, maintained and understood. Drivers go back to the same sheet of ice, the same layout, the same reference points every year. There’s a rhythm to it, a sense of familiarity that lets you push further each time. Drass doesn’t work like that. There are no prepared tracks here. No one comes in overnight to resurface the ice or check for consistency. What you get is raw and natural. It changes constantly depending on the wind, temperature and time of day. It’s not something you can master but rather adapt to. You walk on it and the first few steps will feel reassuring enough, but stand in the same place long enough, and the crisp sheet of ice under you will start to break, pulling you straight into slush that’s underneath it. And when you’re trying to hold a car in a controlled slide, these can become major hazards. So before anything else, we slowed down.

Ice drift record run with the Mahindra BE 6

There was no rushing into the car, no immediate attempt at the record. Instead, it was time spent walking the surface, marking out a circle and then walking it again. Trying to understand not just where the car would go, but how the ice beneath it might respond. Because unlike tarmac, where grip is largely consistent and predictable, this was a surface that could change character halfway through a single arc. We had to give the BE 6 into a very skilled person’s hands because if you get stuck, there’s no coming back. Enter National Racing Champion, Karminder Pal Singh, well experienced to know exactly what needs to be done. His approach was very different from what I would’ve thought. He didn’t look at the expanse as a whole, but section by section. He crouched down, pressed into the ice and traced lines that weren’t immediately visible. There were areas where the thickness varied slightly, patches that had refrozen differently and sections that were more exposed to wind had hardened unevenly. None of it was dramatic enough to stand out on its own – but together, it was enough to influence the outcome of a run. The crew moved ice blocks from one place to another, flattened out the whole surface and fixed everything according to what Karminder asked. Only once that groundwork felt right did the car come into the picture.

The Mahindra BE 6 rolled out onto the marked circle without almost anyone realising that it’s ready to go, because of how silent the motor is. And that silence, oddly enough, made the moment feel more serious. Because there was no noise to mask what was happening. No rising engine note to build anticipation. Just the sound of wind, tyres on ice and the crew praying to the Lord for making things go like we want it to. On paper, what we were attempting sounds straightforward. Initiate the drift, hold the angle, keep it consistent and let the distance build. But out here, each of those steps carries its own set of variables. Too much input and the car rotates too quickly. Too little and it straightens. Hold the throttle a fraction too long and the rear steps wider than you can catch. Come off it too early and the drift dies before it stabilises. And all of that is before the surface decides to change on you.

In merely a few minutes, Karminder was wearing his helmet, strapped into the driver’s seat and ready to go around in circles with opposite lock on the steering wheel. He started and the first attempt lasted just long enough to make the whole point of a raw surface even clearer. The rear stepped out cleanly and for a brief moment it looked like we would reach Leh again in time for lunch. The car settled into the slide, the arc began to form and you could see the beginnings of a circle taking shape against the white. But then, mid-way, the balance shifted. Subtly at first and then all at once. The tyres found grip where they weren’t supposed to. The car tightened its line, straightened itself out and the drift ended before it had even properly established itself. Silence followed.

No one rushed in with any explanation or advice. No one needed to. Out here, you don’t immediately question the driver – you question the surface. Because more often than not, that’s where the answer lies. Karminder stayed in the car for a moment longer than expected. Hands still on the ’wheel, eyes fixed ahead, just processing. And then, without saying much, he stepped out and walked straight to the section where it had fallen apart. That part of the process mattered just as much as the driving itself. This wasn’t about repeating the same attempt and hoping for a better result. It was about understanding why it didn’t work and adjusting accordingly. The line was re-evaluated, the circle tightened slightly, the approach tweaked to get through that inconsistent section earlier – before the drift had the chance to fully open up and become vulnerable to a sudden change in grip. What followed didn’t feel like a second attempt. It felt more deliberate than that – like everything had been reset, but not forgotten. The car rolled back into position, the line now slightly tighter, the approach adjusted just enough to account for what the ice had revealed. There was no big team huddle, no last-minute instructions being shouted across. Everyone knew what needed to change and we were all set to witness what comes next.

Karminder eased the Mahindra BE 6 into motion again, building speed gradually before committing. The initiation this time was cleaner but more importantly, it was calmer. The rear stepped out, the steering caught it early and the car settled into a smooth slide. The first few metres were the most critical, getting past that inconsistent patch before the drift could grow wide enough to be affected by it. And this time, it did. From the outside, it almost looked slow. The BE 6 tracing a smooth arc on a blank canvas, snow beginning to build along the outer edge as the tyres worked through the surface. But from inside the car, it was anything but relaxed. Every small correction mattered. Every change in throttle had to be measured. The steering was never still, just constantly adjusting, reading, reacting – often before the change in surface was even visible. One rotation turned into two. Then three. You could see the circle forming now, clean and consistent, carving itself into the ice. The crew stood still, almost unwilling to move, as if any distraction might break the rhythm. There was no shouting, no calling out numbers – just eyes fixed on the car, watching the master hold that delicate balance between grip and slip. The BE 6 kept circling, the arc widening slightly as confidence built, the snow wall growing taller with each pass. It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t aggressive. It was measured and precise – the only sound made by the crunching of ice under the tyres and the wind whipping at us.

Mahindra BE 6 sets national record

And then, just as deliberately as it had begun, it ended. For a moment, nothing happened. The car stood still in the centre of the circle it had just carved out, the mountains in the background, the mark on the ice telling the entire story. Then the noise came back. Clapping, cheering, a few nods, a few smiles and the officials stepping in to measure what had just been done. Numbers were checked, distances were confirmed, everything documented the way it needed to be. 418 metres. It doesn’t sound like much when you say it out loud. But standing there, looking at that near-perfect ring on raw, unprepared ice in a place such as Drass, it felt like a number that had been earned properly.

Because this wasn’t just about the drift. It was about where it happened. About doing something like this without the safety net of prepared tracks, without consistency, without certainty. About taking a car that wasn’t designed for ice in the way traditional setups are and making it work in conditions where it isn’t always supposed to. And maybe that’s what stays with you the most. Not the record, but the process of making it happen. Ice driving, for the longest time, has lived somewhere else. On frozen lakes in countries that have built a culture around it. Places where the conditions are known, controlled and repeated. But here, in Drass, none of that exists. And yet, on a cold morning with temperatures around -6 degrees Celsius, on a surface that owed us nothing, it happened anyway. We’re not going back to Finland.